This story originally appeared in Alien Dimensions Issue #10
A horn roared from beyond the horizon. Mag Mell did not turn his head towards the source of the sound. From the mound he stood upon, at the edge of the city, he could see the crowds teeming towards the beckoning bells.
The people of Gosh-en were going to the Ruins.
The sound of the horn waned off and a more pleasant arrangement of strings took its place. Mag chuckled. For a cult based on unknowables, the people of Gosh-en sure knew how to make a melody. Of course, they would always argue it was given to them by their lord.
Even in a metropolis like Gosh-en, Conanism was the sole religion followed by the masses. Mag found the idea repulsive that in a period of barely a hundred cronons, the native schools of thought were dragged out and thrown away so that Conanism could take roots. Despite being born in a family willing to adopt Conanism, Mag found his way to buried libraries and forsaken books detailing the ways of the ancients. He grew up studying how his ancestors were scientists who played with forces then unexplored. He spent his school hours learning about the comforting revelations made through Conanism, and he spent his nights cherishing the tales of his ancestors figuring things out and risking the consequences of curiosity. Mag knew the advantages of Conanism…the promise of boundless knowledge, teachings from Conan himself…a fruitful connection with the bountiful consciousness the Lord sent us in his Voyager. But he didn’t want his knowledge fed to him by a cult. He wanted it to be earned, toiled for. And that was how Mag decided to become the only independent scientist in Goshen.
He sipped at his coffee, another extraordinary gift bestowed upon him by the Lord. But he didn’t mind in the slightest that he had to use his enemies’ tools to keep his own sharp. The melodies whispered softly through the breeze, and the exhausted star sunk towards what many believed to be the ruins of the Voyager, where the masses gathered and celebrated the arrival of their Lord’s message in a bottle. A cage of metal, Mag thought, that turned into the most profitable enterprise, especially for Conan. It was three hundred cronons ago that the Voyager had landed. Of course, the people of Gosh-en then had no idea what it was called or what it meant. The doors to the cage were pried open and the plundering began.
According to the legend, it took several cronons to even understand what the cage was and what the arrival meant. In this challenging time, Mosiah Conan took upon the feat of deciphering what the vessel had to say. One of the ancient scientists of Gosh-en, he decrypted the Lords words and finally the revelation reached the masses. Chaos erupted and uncertainty took over the people of Gosh-en. Until Mosiah, after a long time of tinkering with the Voyagers’ toys, climbed upon the vessel and played a melody. The first melody they ever heard. The sound was so soothing, so benevolent, it maimed the panic that had seeped into the crowd, replacing it with awe and eventually gratitude. A couple centuries of manipulation and greed later, Conan had created a religion.
But the lies did not appease Mag, neither did the promises of charity in the form of controlled knowledge. No, he wished to surpass such deceptions and prove to his people that the Lord they prayed to was just a person…living far from them. An extraterrestrial.
#
“Extraordinary,” Conan muttered. He stood at the top of the mound, a hillock made out of hand cut rocks, steps carved into the sapphire mineral leading up to the glistening flat ramp. The mound was tall enough to look down at a crowd of a few thousand, exactly the way Conan wanted. But at that moment, his gaze was drawn to a figure standing at the center of the stage.
His latest creation. The ADAM synthetic prototype.
Of course, Conan would never take credit for creating the newest addition to his line of robotic humanoids. All of the humanoids were mere reconstructions of their Lord. Conan was simply the translator in the eyes of the people of Gosh-en. In the eyes of Conan, it didn’t matter what the people believed. This was going to change their world and forever will grow his empire of Conanism.
He walked closer to the ADAM, admiring the pale fabric that draped its face. Skin, that would be called. The facial features were quite unlike anything Gosh-en had seen before. He looked at the metal breastplate adorning the sigil of Conan Creations, a globe under a triangle. In the reflection of the shining metal, he saw his own face. A tangled mess of curly spikes covered his square jaw. Two beady structures, bizarrely similar to the ADAM rested at the top of his face, gazing back at themselves. He raised his scaly hands to touch his face. Then he touched the skin of ADAM. You will always be my creation, he thought to himself.
The microphone in his ear crackled with static.
“Sire, we have secured the outer edge of the city. No more than twenty million people will enter the compound approximately one hundredth cronons later”.
“Good,” Conan said, in response to the guard updating him. “I wouldn’t want this presentation to be disorderly in any way.”
“Copy that, sire.” The microphone buzzed with static for an instance before falling back into silence.
Conan turned away from the ADAM and looked at the miles of open land that would soon be overflowing with the people of Gosh-en. They have all been waiting to see their Lord for so long. And he was the only one they could trust to deliver on it. It was not an easy task, even though Conan could interpret most of the phonographs found on the Voyager. Of course, the details of the messages were never made public, barring a few attempts of hacking by one notorious scientist. But luckily the information the hacker, Mag Mell, had received was never made public. So, while Conan knew exactly what the Voyager was, for the people of Gosh-en, it was a message from their Lord. In reality, the Voyager was just an explorer ship sent through random wormholes, and had managed to land on Gosh-en. According to the translation Conan made himself off the phonographs aboard the Voyager, the ship belonged to a race of creatures that called themselves Humans and for some odd reason, they sent with it pleasant melodies and odd pictures. Luckily, because of his expertise in translations and codebreaking, Conan had monopoly over the information that came aboard Voyager. Even with some of their plundering, he knew the ship could leave at any time. It could even return via the same wormhole it had come. The science was almost magic, so, he decided to make a religion out of it, where the Lord that created the people of Gosh-en had sent us his gifts to be presented by Conan himself. And now, through His teachings, they will see and purchase and keep in their homes a spitting image of their Lord. The people have been striving for too long to get a glimpse of what H looked like, and now Conan would show them.
With a 100 million ADAM prototypes ready for purchase, he would ensure that every household will have a fully functional intelligent ADAM, with a lot of historical and cultural memories and experiences embedded in its powerful programming. A robot that was made right out of the Voyagers’ teachings. Of course, the ADAM knew what it was and, as a self-aware robot, it had to be kept permanently locked away from some information about the Voyager. Conan was about to change the way people worshipped their Lord forever. ADAM could tell them the stories of their Lord, and how the gods danced and sang to string instruments. From this day on, he wouldn’t need to make them pay for hymns and songs. He would make them pay for an experience, and, of course, they would pay a lot more.
“Sire,” the microphone crackled again. Conan thought the guards had finished their job and arranged for the presentation already.
“What is it?” he barked back into the microphone.
“This is SecInt sire. We have received some new information on the scientist.”
The scientist. Conan’s only problem right now, an untied loose end, a pain in his side. He had asked Security Intelligence to keep track of this troublesome hacker.
“What is it? Do you have his location?” Conan asked, eager to end this problem.
“Yes sire. We were able to track him due to a foolish mistake he made.”
The scientist has been extremely careful so far in all his destructive interference. Conan had trouble imagining he slipped up. “What mistake?” he asked.
“Sire, he ordered an ADAM on priority delivery. He will receive it today and we have sent one which can be tracked. We will have him soon, sire.”
Conan felt his heart skip a terrifying beat. He took his scaled hand, trembling with fear and clenched it into a fist. “Did you just send the most advanced robot we have made to a notorious hacker and scientist?”
The microphone went silent for a palpably nervous moment. “But sire…”
“Send an Air strike towards the location the moment the ADAM is received. You damned fools,” Conan yelled. This problem could get uncontrollably out of hand.
#
Mag Mell was happy. As happy as he could be given the circumstances. But he was also nervous. He received the ADAM several moments ago and, as he had expected, Conan had installed a tracker on it. It took him a while to disable it, but he didn’t feel the pressure then. It wasn’t like Conan could send an air strike to a location teeming with innocent civilians.
No, the pressure was piling up only now. He had a task ahead of him that could make or break the future of his people. The ADAM was his final assault against Conan. Or his final attempt that could fail and get him killed. The only way to get a desirable outcome would be to convince a highly intelligent robot that his memories were fabricated.
Mag unhooked the metallic beast from its conveyer that had brought it to his underground laboratory. The ADAM stood significantly taller than him, an intentional modification Conan must have added to exaggerate the grandeur of their Lord. Mag was well aware that the instant he would turn on the robot, a cascade of processes would eventually trigger a more sophisticated tracking system than he could disable. That meant he would have precious little time to get ADAM to do what he wanted.
Determined, he turned on the ADAM by pressing a blue circular switch that was a part of the sigil on his breastplate. The robot buzzed to life, opening its eyes for the first time. Mag knew the construction of this specimen was in keeping with how those extraterrestrials looked and acted. What he did not know is how intelligent the ADAM actually was.
“Hi ADAM, my name is Mag Mell.”
The robot looked down towards Mag. It seemed like it took a second to register the attributes of Mags face, perhaps contemplating how different it was from its own. “Hello,” it finally replied, in an echoing voice that seemed to boom out of its neck. Another grandiose addition by Conan, Mag assumed.
ADAM walked off the conveyer and looked around the laboratory. Its hands stretched down to its knees and its legs bent at halfway, allowing it to walk, unlike any of the people of Gosh-en. ADAM was clearly majestic. And given the way it was looking at its surroundings, perhaps quite intelligent. It seemed as though it was processing its surroundings almost instantaneously and, suddenly, its lips curled into a smile.
Mag smiled back, waving back the curled spikes that surrounded his mouth. “ADAM, I need your help.”
“Of course, Mag. I am your friend, your guardian. I can help you through any situation.”
Mag realized that underlying all that intelligence, the robot was programmed to seem like a friendly symbol of their Lord.
“You can, ADAM. But for that you have to forget what you know and listen to what I say, very carefully.”
“Indeed. I am here to listen to all your problems and all your worries.”
Mag had somewhat expected this to be a difficult task, but he was running short on time and would rather take the brutal way to get this done. “Come sit on this chair ADAM. We have lots to talk about.”
The robot moved elegantly, striding towards the metallic chair. Mag had toiled for the last half a cronon engineering this marvel. Ever since he found out what Conan intended to do through the hacked information he retrieved, Mag knew he had to be a step ahead. The chair had been constructed and designed specifically to enable access to the core programming of the robot.
ADAM sat comfortably in the chair and Mag started plugging it into the system. He had prepared a program that would hopefully modulate ADAM’s core without shutting it down. If ADAM shuts down, the only good thing would be it could delay Conan’s forces. If ADAM could be modulated enough to get it to do what Mag wanted, his task would be complete, regardless of what happened after that. If ADAM were to remain unconvinced, all of the risk would have been for nothing. Mag started the program and ADAM seemed oblivious of what was happening.
At least he hasn’t shut down yet, Mag thought to himself.
#
Conan paced nervously back and forth on the empty stage. The presentation had already been delayed by too long and he suspected the people could start rioting soon. But nothing would be safe until Mag Mell was stopped. The last time he heard from SecInt, they had lost their initial tracker. They were counting on the fact that Mag would turn on the robot and unwittingly turn on the secondary tracker. Of course, Conan was too nervous to believe anything would work in their favor at this point.
To make matters worse, the council of Conan was here. He would have to explain to them the delay in one of their heaviest investments. The people might riot because of their sentiment but the council members will rip him apart for ruining their business prospects. Conan contemplated which outcome he feared the most.
“What is going on, Conan?” the screen behind him came alive. An old lady with dark spikes dropping off her face stared down at Conan, and the lifeless ADAM at the center of the stage.
“Madam Debara,” Conan spoke softly, “things are under control.”
“They don’t seem to be, Conan. You know how much is riding on this show of yours.”
“Excuse me, Madam, but a lot more has been riding on me for a lot longer than just now. Have I ever disappointed?”
“Conan, I am aware of your personal investment in this, but this council is not supporting you for personal reasons.”
“There is a threat to the prospect, possibly the whole system. We can’t move forward until it is dealt with.”
“You call that under control?”
“Our agents are closing in on the culprit as we speak. He won’t be causing any damage but starting the presentation before he is taken care of would be too risky.”
“Because he has an ADAM”.
Conan looked at her puzzled. “Yes, indeed. Seems like you already know what is going on”.
“I did not become a councilwoman based on my scientific skills, Conan. I climbed up the ladder by knowing everything about my friends and much more about my enemies.”
Conan shuddered at the thought of having the head of the Council as his enemy. “So, you know that we have been tracking the ADAM. We will have Mag Mell apprehended soon.”
“I also know your tracker has been disabled. So, while we wait for him to turn on your trinket, explain to me what the risk is. Right now.”
Conan didn’t want to test her any further.
“Mag Mell has been attempting and sometimes succeeding in hacking our systems for several cronons now. We know that he gained access to some of the information about the Voyager and the ADAM project. We think he might have also deciphered parts of the Voyager’s messages on his own. You have to have known that if I could do it, there would be some other brilliant scientist out there who could do it as well,” he explained.
“Moreover,” he continued, “part of the information he may have retrieved pertained to the ADAM core programming. Of course, that was worrying but since he hadn’t released any of this information to the public, we were somewhat relieved. That, and the fact that no one would believe the lunatic skeptic.”
“I am aware of the influence you have on the people of Gosh-en. That is why we invested in you, almost blindly. But something has you worried now. What is it?”
“With the actual robot at his disposal, he could modulate its programming and possibly find a way to override the core of other ADAMs too. We can’t reveal a potentially insecure model of the ADAM to the public until we capture or kill Mag Mell.”
Madam Debara sighed. She nodded her head slightly as the eyes on her forehead peered down at Conan. “Don’t bother with capture.”
Conan smiled. “Yes, Madam.”
The microphone in his ears crackled. “Sire, we have confirmation the scientist has turned on ADAM. We are retrieving his location right now.”
This is working out surprisingly well, Conan thought.
#
“I am not real, am I?” ADAM said, his face contorting into a grimace. Mag had to appreciate the details of his face and musculature. It almost seemed like ADAM could feel sadness. When had he started referring to him as he?
“But if I am not real, then how do I know you are real?” he said looking at Mag.
“Because I was born. You were created as I just showed you. You were created by people like me.”
“Does that mean you are my creator?” ADAM asked.
Mag thought about the question. He could lie and say yes, thus making ADAM malleable to any of his requests. Or he could stick to his principles and avoid perpetrating the same ideologies he was fighting against.
“Yes, I am your creator” Mag said. He smiled faintly at the robot. “We created you based on a pre-existing model, as I just showed you. I want you to find that model and send me back proof about how those creatures look and act and live and die. Can you do that for me ADAM?”
ADAM looked up at Mag. Mag bent down and unplugged the robot from the chair. Feeling his wrists free from the mechanical chair, ADAM stood up solemnly and walked away from Mag, slowly.
“You think I have that choice? To not help you?”
Mag looked at the back of ADAMs head, puzzled for a moment. The robot was far more than just intelligent, it was self-aware.
“I think you do ADAM. And I think you will choose to help me out,” Mag said.
“Why?”
“These people, Conan and his followers, they seem to have forgotten the wonders of science. They think a mysterious Lord is guiding their life. They are willing to get their information and technology without exploration.”
“How does that matter to me?” ADAM turned towards Mag, almost threatening.
“It matters to you because you are smart. Conan tried to cage you in your own mind, but I showed you your true self. You know why I did that? Because everyone should know themselves and find truth by themselves. Through science. Not through a cult leader.”
“So, you think I will do this for you because you showed me the worst, most inconvenient truth about my life?”
“Yes, you will. And if nothing, you will do this to prove the truth about your life. To prove to the people of Gosh-en that you have a creator and they don’t. To prove to them that they could make marvelous wonder like yourself if they trusted science and explored the world themselves,” Mag said. He thought to himself, if not for all these reasons, Mag would have to reprogram ADAM to do his bidding.
ADAM looked down at his own body. He flexed his muscles and clenched his fist. Finally looking up, he said, “I’ll go find these creatures for you. Because, if what you’re saying is true, then they are my true creators, not you.”
ADAM raised his fist and struck Mag in his head. With a thud, Mag’s lifeless body fell to the floor. ADAM stepped across the dead body and walked to one of the monitors displaying details of the Voyager. Mag’s downloads had been enough. He knew what he had to do and he knew exactly how to do it, quickly and efficiently.
Many would see him as a messenger of the Lord and no one would stand in his way. He would simply stride through the millions of people waiting outside, walk purposely into the Voyager ship, activate the engines, and leave the planet before anyone could stop him. It was right. It was just. And he would meet his real creators.
#
ADAM stepped out of the Voyager onto new ground. A white star shone yellow in this atmosphere, and the sky was a brilliant blue.
Aboard the Voyager he had had time to absorb all knowledge of the laws of physics, along with wormhole technology. He had discovered that to use a wormhole meant he could leap forward or backward through time, due to the disturbance in space-time a wormhole caused. He had no idea when he would end up, but his mission was to meet his real creators, and the wormhole would get him to the right star system.
According to the records he had uploaded on his brief trip, the Humans called this Earth. But the sky looked brighter than he had thought it would be. Cleaner. Had he arrived too late?
Suddenly, a hairy creature jumped into sight. He had a large forehead and stood upright. Holding a wooden stake in its hand, the creature sniffed and waved it at ADAM, taking a step towards him. The closer the hairy creature came, the more ADAM realized what it was.
Retrieving the history of the Lord that he was supposed to remember, he knew these were Neanderthals. He was not too late. He was too early. It was going to be a long wait.